Counseling & Workshops

COUNSELING

* I operate on a sliding scale to accomodate a wide range of realities. I also love bartering!*

If you are alive, you've experienced opression.

It probably isn't the word you use when the television tells you that you're not blonde enough, or skinny enough, or don't live in the right neighborhood, but all of these messages combine into a force that encourages you to see yourself as lacking. The fact that choosing to keep all your body hair or being attracted to people of the same gender can lead to being ostracized, losing job opprtunities & contrinbute to long term mental-emotional & physical health concerns makes it oppressive.

The list of things that have been justified to belittle & dehumanize us is literally endless: age, skin color, weight, religious beliefs, sexual orienation, intelligence, income, education, ethnicity, eating habits, gender, hair texture, just to name a few.

My counseling offerings are designed to address the core aspects of oppression:

1. disconnection from self, community & personal/cultural ancestry

2. redesigning maladjusted coping strategies & behaviors

3. ceating life systems that serve to maintain the safety of one's true self

Who we are is our most precious & most jeapordized resource. We would all be vibrantly & authentically ourelves if we did not live in a world where people literally make their living & gain their power from our dis-ease with the way life itself has made us.

Healing can only happen when our we feel safe enough to emerge from our self-protecting cages. The process requires trust, understanding, patience & a bit of old school tough love, but the journey is worth it. Change starts where we are & gets us to where we need to be.

UNDOING OPRESSION, ONE CONNECTION AT A TIME

Personal Life Counseling

Community Life Counseling

Anti-Oppression Ally Training

Group Workshop Facilitation

Personal Life Counseling

Life counseling sessions last for 90 minutes each, unless otherwise arranged. Sessions are focused on internal storytelling, decoding environmental messages, healing environmental & intergenerational trauma, building external & internal resources, nonviolent communication, learning tools for self-care & learning tools for sustaining a liberated self.

If it is seen as being beneficial, personal sessions may involve other people. This is never done without the informed consent of all people potentially involved.

Community Life Counseling

Community counseling is offered to organizations and/or geographical areas. Community counseling sessions are scheduled to fit the needs of the community & last at least 2 hours per session to ensure there is time & space for all attendess to be seen & heard.

Community may be broadly defined as a group of people with a common interest, eg: making sure the product launch is on schedule, keeping streets safe after dark, supporting someone through an emotional crisis.

Anti-Racism Ally Training

This is for people interested in becoming more effective partners in the fight against intitutional & interpersonal racism. The training covers: understanding modern racism & how it differs from historical racism, identifying racism in interpersonal interactions, microaggressions & how to help others become more effective allies.

Although the basic information of this training is useful for everyone & can be tailored to meet the needs of many groups of people, this is a training designed for people socially defined as White in the United States. For a more indepth discussion please contact me.

Group Process Facilitation

This is for organizations or other collectives of people who need a mediator to navigate difficult issues in the interpersonal environment. Having an observer with no conflict of interest can be a great asset in getting to the core of the issue & creating a practical solution.

* For pricing please contact me personally with details about what you need. I operate on a sliding scale to accomodate a wide range of realities. I also love bartering!*